The present invention relates to a fluid yarn splicing device. In a yarn winding process, when end breakage occurred, the yarn ends are pieced together automatically or by an operator, and then the yarn winding operation is restarted. Mechanical knotters capable of forming a weaver's knot or a fisherman's knot are well-known automatic yarn piecing devices and employed generally in the conventional automatic winders. However, those mechanical knotters have a serious disadvantage that the knot is almost three times as large as a single yarn. Accordingly, such large knots cause yarn breakages in knitting and weaving processes or knots appear on the surface of fabrics and require to be concealed in the backside.
A method and an apparatus for splicing yarns in a joint which is entirely different either from the weaver's knot or from the fisherman's knot in construction have been proposed to overcome such a disadvantage of the conventional knotter. According to the proposed yarn splicing method, yarns are spliced together by subjecting the superposed ends of the yarns to the action of a compressed fluid so that the ends are mixed and the respective component fibers are intertwined.
A yarn splicing device for carrying out such a method needs to be equipped with a driving mechanism for driving a yarn end control unit including a lever which engages directly and guides a yarn, and a fluid supply mechanism for supplying a fluid that acts on yarn ends. A new automatic yarn winder equipped with such mechanisms is able to form a desirable joint. However, it is extremely difficult to incorporate a new yarn splicing device additionally into an existing automatic winder not equipped with any fluid yarn splicing device and installed in a plant, so to speak, an old automatic yarn winder, and yet such an old automatic yarn winder is desired to operate as ever.